The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football

by Jeff Benedict

  It’s in those ways, and countless more, that Bryant’s loss to the Longhorns program cannot be measured. Those in the know argued the early-morning incident involving quarterback Case McCoy and linebacker Jordan Hicks, accused of sexually assaulting a twenty-one-year-old woman in a hotel room at the Alamo Bowl at the end of the 2012 season, would never have happened under Bryant’s watch (no charges were filed in the case). He would have seen trouble coming three steps ahead and put an end to the party before it started.

  Which makes his personal undoing all the more ironic.

  “I got terminated on March 23 [2011],” he said. “A young lady in the athletic department asked me for an $11,000 raise. I told her it wasn’t going to happen. She went to the AD and others and was told no.”

  That “young lady” was twenty-four-year-old Rachel Arena, a former Angel, UT’s version of a recruiting hostess, who, shortly after graduating from Texas in 2008, had been hired to work as an administrative assistant in the football office. Bryant was her supervisor.

  It was August 2010 when Arena first alleged that during the two years she worked in the football office, Bryant had made repeated sexual advances in the form of unwanted texts and verbal and physical acts of sexual harassment, charges Bryant vehemently denied at the time.

  In its “Summary of Investigation,” the university reported that in October 2010 it received a formal letter of complaint from attorneys representing Employee 1 (Arena). One of those attorneys was Gloria Allred. Known for teary-eyed press conferences and her fearless, brass-knuckle approach, Allred only added to the anxiety brought on by Brown’s first losing season in Austin.

  According to documents obtained by ESPN’s Outside the Lines, in her formal complaint Arena charged the harassment began with inappropriate texts from Bryant and escalated from there. “It progressed to more and more personal questions and at all hours, including weekends,” Outside the Lines reported Arena had said. “He would ask me when I was going out, where I was going, and what I was wearing. He would ask me if I went home with anyone and about my sex life.” She told investigators he would repeatedly text her. At least one of the texts allegedly read “IW2KY”—short for “I want to kiss you.”

  In September 2011, Outside the Lines reported Arena told Linda Millstone, the school’s associate vice president for institutional equity, that she showed some of Bryant’s texts to her mother the previous April but never informed Longhorns head coach Mack Brown of the unwanted advances.

  “I was upset,” Arena was said to have told investigators, “but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him [Brown] what had happened.”

  In her complaint Arena charged the harassment continued until July 2010. On July 15, she alleged, during a closed-door meeting in Bryant’s office dealing with her request for a raise—to $38,000 a year—that Bryant, whose wife works in the athletic department’s athletic services unit, pulled down the top of her dress and bra and fondled her breast. She also charged that another time, in a break room, Bryant came in, stood in front of the door and, as Arena started to leave, kissed her neck.

  Bryant insisted the allegations were untrue. “I’m guilty of a lot of shit,” Bryant said. “But I’m not guilty of this.”

  About a month later Arena would take a paid leave of absence from her job.

  According to documents obtained by ESPN, the formal university investigation uncovered at least two other female office workers who charged Bryant had attempted to kiss them as well. Another woman described Bryant to investigators as “old-freak-nasty.”

  A formal interview with Bryant took place on November 3, 2010, at the office of his Austin attorney, Tom Nesbitt. Bryant repeatedly denied any form of verbal or physical harassment had taken place or sending inappropriate text messages, including the one that allegedly read “IW2KY.”

  Late in the sixty-five-minute interview Nesbitt asked university attorney Jeff Graves a rather important question: “Has anyone told you they have seen text messages from Cleve Bryant that were of an inappropriate, sexual or romantic nature?”

  Responded Graves, “Well, this is not the appropriate time for information to go that way.” He then moved on to another subject.

  Based upon that interview and those with some sixteen other individuals, on November 29, 2010, investigators working on behalf of the university submitted an “initial written review” to President William Powers Jr. The review found that “sexual harassment had occurred.”

  Mediation between university counsel and Allred began almost immediately. On January 11, 2011, according to the summary report, a formal settlement was reached, and Arena was paid $400,000, a figure that included a full release for the university and all officers and employees.

  Two months after that agreement was completed, Powers met with Bryant and Nesbitt to discuss their concerns about the university’s conclusion. Three weeks after that meeting, on March 23, 2011, Powers wrote to Bryant and advised him that “sufficient reasonable and credible evidence” existed that Bryant had sexually harassed Arena. The most compelling evidence, Powers wrote, was the interview investigators had conducted with Arena. Bryant, who had been on voluntary leave, was immediately terminated. At the time of his dismissal Bryant was the highest-ranking African-American employee on campus, earning around $250,000 a year.

  Oddly, it wasn’t until five months later—on August 17–18, 2011—that a “full evidentiary hearing” was held in the case. In that hearing both sides were given “a full opportunity” to present “all evidence and testimony.” That hearing took place more than eight months after the university had already paid $400,000 to Arena.

  “UT rushed to settle the claim before it even finished its investigation,” Nesbitt said. “Having paid a fat settlement, the university could come to but one conclusion.”

  Nesbitt added: “I never saw any allegedly inappropriate texts between Cleve and the complainant. There never were any. All texts I saw were routine business communications related to athletic department business. The complaining party never produced any texts to UT or to us. Not one. No witness ever said they had seen inappropriate texts from Cleve. The complainant ultimately claimed that she deleted the allegedly incriminating texts. Our view is that is ridiculous. You get these texts. You hire Gloria Allred to seek a cash settlement. That person deletes the texts? Not likely.”

  University officials declined comment on the case. In response to several Open Records requests the Texas Attorney General’s Office ruled the university “must release” both the summary of the investigation and the statement of the accused. Despite such an order the University of Texas withheld Arena’s statement, citing privacy issues.

  “It will always be a privacy issue,” said a legal spokesperson for the school. “The privacy of the victim or alleged victim must be protected.”

  In October 2011, shortly after news of the settlement was released, Gloria Allred told ESPN, “I am very proud of my client and the courage that she demonstrated to stand up for her rights in this case. Her willingness to do the right thing has benefited other women and the University as well.”

  As for Bryant, he said the university never asked one person about his character and did not allow Brown to speak on his behalf. And despite his oft-heard comment about leaving if Bryant ever did, Brown remained firmly entrenched at Texas.

  “There is no gray with Bronco”

  BYU’s football program was reeling after the 2004 season. Two players were in jail awaiting trial on rape charges. The head coach had been forced out. And it had been three years since it had posted a winning record. Adding insult to injury, its archrival, Utah, under head coach Urban Meyer, had finished the 2004 regular season ranked No. 5 in the country with an 11-0 record. Dubbed the original “BCS Busters,” Utah was the first team from a non-BCS conference to get invited to a BCS bowl game.

  While Utah basked in the national headlines as it prepared to face Pittsburgh in the Fiesta Bowl, BYU was desperate to get its program back on track. The ta
sk of finding a new head coach fell largely to Tom Holmoe, a BYU alum who had won two Super Bowls as a defensive back with the San Francisco 49ers before becoming a head coach at Cal. Holmoe was chosen to lead a transition team put in place after BYU fired its athletic director at the outset of the gang rape investigation. Holmoe had no interest in hiring anyone from Gary Crowton’s staff. There was only one man Holmoe wanted—Utah’s defensive coordinator, Kyle Whittingham.

  Holmoe and Whittingham went way back. In 1981 they were the two best players on BYU’s defense: Holmoe a gritty corner; Whittingham the team’s intense, emotional leader and captain. He had that same fiery brand of leadership as an assistant under Urban Meyer at Utah. Hours after Crowton resigned, Holmoe offered Whittingham the BYU job.

  But that same day Whittingham got offered the head job at Utah. Urban Meyer had announced he was heading to Florida to become its new head coach right after Utah played in the Fiesta Bowl. Whittingham had been chosen as his successor.

  Whittingham felt torn. “Anytime you are talking about your alma mater, there is a pull and a certain allure to that,” he said. “There was so much to the decision—bitter rivals; same conference; same state. That’s why it was such a gut-wrenching experience.”

  After days of mulling it over, Whittingham called Holmoe and told him he was coming to BYU. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the relationship he had formed with his players. Plus, he and his family were firmly entrenched at Utah. “For my wife it was: ‘Why are you even thinking about this? It’s Utah.’ ”

  Persuaded, Whittingham called Holmoe back and told him he had changed his mind: he was remaining at Utah.

  Later that night, the phone rang at Bronco Mendenhall’s home. It was Holmoe. He asked how Mendenhall was doing. Mendenhall said he and his family were packing.

  “Not so fast,” Holmoe told him.

  On December 8, 2004, Utah announced Kyle Whittingham as its new head coach. That same day, Bronco Mendenhall trudged into his job interview with Tom Holmoe and a number of other BYU administrators. He went in with a chip on his shoulder.

  “I only came to BYU for one reason, and that was to help a friend—Gary Crowton,” Mendenhall said. “And I saw the relationship between him and the athletic department leadership as adversarial. So all of those feelings were pretty raw when I went in. I was defending Gary.”

  An introvert by nature, Mendenhall was tight-lipped throughout the interview. It left a poor impression on Holmoe.

  “He wouldn’t say anything,” Holmoe said. “He was so loyal to Gary because Gary had hired him. I was trying to draw out of him a vision for the program. I asked what things he would do differently and how he would make it better. He said he didn’t think there was much that could be done to make it better. I was like, you gotta be kidding me.”

  By the time the interview ended, Holmoe had decided to pursue other candidates, and Mendenhall didn’t care.

  But when BYU players got wind that other candidates were being considered, a bunch of them went to see Holmoe. “About twenty-five guys came into my office to tell me—plead with me—‘Please let it be Bronco,’ ” Holmoe said. “They were all defensive players, not one offensive player.”

  It was the kind of input Holmoe couldn’t ignore. At the same time, BYU’s president privately reached out to Gary Crowton and asked for his recommendation. He made a case for Mendenhall. “I recommended Bronco because he would be very disciplined in exercising what he felt was right,” Crowton said. “There is no gray with Bronco. It’s black-and-white.”

  Under the circumstances, that was music to the ears of the top brass at the university. On December 13, BYU introduced thirty-eight-year-old Mendenhall as its new coach, making him the second-youngest head coach in Division I football.

  In his first full day on the job, Mendenhall arrived at his office before 5:00 a.m. No one was around. Mendenhall had tossed and turned all night, unable to stop thinking about the task ahead. He looked around his new office. The walls were bare. The top of his desk had lists of recruits. There was a couch with Nike gear on it. A pile of messages was next to the phone. He started making a to-do list. An hour later he was still writing. There was so much to do he didn’t know where to start. Hire assistant coaches? Meet with the team? Call recruits?

  All of a sudden he felt as if he were in over his head. He knew football. He knew BYU’s strict honor code. But he didn’t know how to meld the two in a way that would return the program to the national prominence it had achieved under LaVell Edwards. Worse, he had no one to turn to for advice.

  Desperate, he knelt beside the couch and prayed. “I needed help, and I was seeking guidance,” Mendenhall said.

  His quiet prayer eventually transitioned to prolonged, silent meditation. He lost track of time until he was stirred by a knock on the door. He checked his watch; it was nearly 8:00 a.m. He opened the door and discovered LaVell Edwards.

  “I had a feeling you’d be here early,” Edwards said in his signature raspy voice. “I just came by to wish you luck.”

  Mendenhall was speechless. He hardly knew Edwards. But he revered him.

  “Please come in,” Mendenhall said.

  Nursing a bum knee, the seventy-four-year-old legend limped toward a chair and took a seat opposite Mendenhall. Then he just stared at the young coach. Mendenhall met his gaze.

  “You’ve got a tough job,” Edwards finally said.

  “I just realized that over the past two hours.”

  Edwards grinned. He knew Mendenhall hadn’t even begun to realize how tough it would be. “You’ve got one of the hardest jobs in the country,” Edwards continued.

  Sober, Mendenhall nodded.

  “But you’ve also got one of the best jobs in the country,” Edwards said.

  For the next thirty minutes, Mendenhall listened as Edwards shared ideas. When it was clear that the visit was coming to an end, Mendenhall asked if he had any parting advice.

  “Don’t try to be me,” Edwards said. “Don’t try to be anybody else, either. The best way to success is be yourself. Just be yourself and set your program in that direction.”

  Then he disappeared.

  That afternoon Mendenhall called a team meeting. In no uncertain terms, he let everybody know that the game at BYU was about to change. Players would be expected to meet an exceptionally high performance standard on the field—unparalleled conditioning and exceptional technique—and an even higher standard off the field. No aspect of the honor code would be optional.

  At the end of the meeting, three players trailed him to his office and announced they were quitting the team. The following day three more players quit. That only emboldened Mendenhall. Over the first ten days of his tenure he came up with a five-point mission statement for himself. He listed the points in order of priority:

  1. Help develop each BYU player spiritually.

  2. Help each BYU player grow intellectually.

  3. Develop character in each player.

  4. Enable every player to provide public service.

  5. Finish in the Top 25 every season.

  None of these were expectations placed on him by the university. Mendenhall came up with these on his own. The first four were based on his reading of BYU’s handbook and the university’s instructions to faculty and staff. “I considered myself an employee of the institution,” Mendenhall said. “I figured if those objectives applied to everyone that teaches and works at this university, they probably ought to apply to me, too.”

  The fifth one—finishing in the top twenty-five—was Mendenhall’s self-imposed goal for greatness on the field.

  Then he told his staff that he wanted to change the profile of their recruits. “National-championship-caliber athletes that are exceptional students and who are either Mormons or who want to live the Mormon standards,” Mendenhall said. “That is what we want. Otherwise you should not play football at BYU.”

  To ensure they were recruiting student-athletes who fit the mold of a faith-base
d institution, Mendenhall also told his coaches that he wanted them to use new recruiting protocols:

  • All recruits would be subject to background checks.

  • Recruits’ parents would be invited to accompany their sons on official campus visits.

  • No recruit—Mormon or otherwise—would receive a scholarship offer without being interviewed and endorsed by an ecclesiastical leader from the Mormon faith to ensure the recruit was living his life in accordance with the BYU honor code.

  There was one other thing. Mendenhall wanted recruiters to be much more explicit about the honor code when making in-home visits to recruits, especially when visiting homes of non-Mormon athletes who had little or no familiarity with the church’s teachings. “They don’t have to believe what Mormons believe,” Mendenhall said. “But they need to know that Christian values are expected to be lived on our campus.”

  Some of his assistants thought he was crazy. “Nobody is going to come here,” one of them said.

  Others agreed.

  But Mendenhall had a different perspective. “I don’t want these kids to come and not know what they are getting into,” he said. “If you don’t acknowledge and aren’t pretty clear about what they are getting into here, I think it borders on exploitation for the sake of playing a game. I’ve seen young men make mistakes and come and go here. And I don’t want that to ever happen again.”

  The changes in recruiting tactics had an instant impact. The year before Mendenhall took over, BYU pursued 1,000 recruits. In Mendenhall’s first season, BYU recruited just 125 players. A fraction of them received a scholarship. The culture of the team changed overnight. Its record improved pretty fast, too. In Mendenhall’s first season, BYU finished 6-6. The next year BYU opened the 2006 season by losing the first two games. Then the Cougars ripped off ten straight wins to close out the season 11-2. Along the way they knocked off fifteenth-ranked TCU in Fort Worth and hammered Oregon 38–8 in a bowl game. In 2007, BYU went 11-2 again, going on another ten-game winning streak that included a bowl victory over UCLA.